Cartoon Reviews: The Legend of Korra Episodes 01–02 - Welcome to Republic City/A Leaf in the Wind

Plot Summary
Seventy years have passed since the end of the first series, and from the main cast only Katara survives. The new Avatar, Korra, has mastered the arts of water, earth, and fire bending, but has yet to learn air bending. When Katara's son, Tenzin, cannot move to the Southern Pole to teach Korra airbending, Korra decides to travel to Republic City to learn from the only existing airbending master.

License Requests: Kurogane



I'm a huge fan of martial arts manga. If said martial arts manga happen to have swords in them, all the better. Though I would personally prefer a manga about Western swords, since all the manga-ka that draw manga about swords are as fanboyish about katana as I am about bastard swords, the chances of that happening are slim. So I swallow my pride, and enjoy the swords for what they are.

Kurogane is by manga-ka Haruto Ikezawa, and has been running in Weekly Shounen Jump since September 2011. In it a high school student, Kurogane, joins the kendo club after he has a run in with the ghost of a former swordswoman. The spirit, insert name, takes him under her wing, and start teaching him everything about her style.

License Requests: Beelzebub

You know of my love for comedy, and you know of my love for action. Now, finally a sweet, sweet combination of the two! Well, besides One Piece that is. Beelzebub is the story of Tatsumi Oga, a rotten delinquent who one day finds himself raising the son of the Great Demon Lord, who is destined to destroy the world. Oga is joined by Hilda, a demon wet nurse tasked with caring for the young demon lord, Beelzebub (or, Beel, for short). Not wanting to be responsible for destroying the world, Oga tries to pass the child off to any of the other thugs at his school, unfortunately none of them are as rotten as he is.

License Requests: Sket Dance



Have I mentioned that I love comedy? Even comedy that's based on cultural humor, that takes a moment for me to get because I need to read the translator's note about why the joke is funny. Even jokes like that get at least a chuckle out of me. Of course a series that's entirely made of jokes you need to be Japanese to understand probably won't do all that well in a Western market, which is why it's fortunate that Sket Dance doesn't rely entirely on cultural humor.

License Requests: Nisekoi

Because I don't have an original bone in my body, here's a column where I talk about manga I love that isn't licensed in the states, but should be. And, since apparently providence loves me, this column is coinciding with the end of Bakuman. So for the first little bit, let's use this as a chance to show off some of the series in Weekly Shounen Jump that I would love to see brought over to Weekly Shounen Jump Alpha.

Shounen Jump has a pretty high turnaround, or at least it does for series that haven't already been running for ten plus years. There are many series that never even break the twenty-five chapter mark. Some rare ones make it to fifty chapters, but those are few and far between. Nisekoi is one of those series that has almost made it to the twenty five chapter mark, and I hope that it not only passes said mark, but keeps going long enough to get licensed.

Graphic Novel Reviews: Superman 001-007

What if Superman turned evil? That is basically the premise of the first seven issues. I haven't read any Superman before, but I'm pretty sure that's been done before. This series starts off well, with Superman and Lois not married, seriously DC, what is canon and what isn't canon anymore? Dick used to be Batman, so Final Crisis happened, but Clark and Lois are no longer married? Pretty sure that happened before Final Crisis, ah, whatever. I'll just settle for, DC doesn't know what is canon anymore.

Anyway, as I was saying, the series starts off well, focusing on Superman's personal conflict as Clark Kent, as the Daily Planet is bought up by a media company whose business practices Clark does not agree with. This is a perfect example of how to write drama with Superman. Most people's argument against Superman is that there's not drama in his stories because he's too powerful, and writers have to rely on kryptonite to power him down to a more relatable, vulnerable level.

Graphic Novel Reviews: Justice League 001-007

It would probably be more appropriate to review the first six issues, as they're the ones that have the unifying storyline, but since I decided to write all these while the first seven issues were out, I'm sticking to my guns. Basically Justice League is the story of how seven heroes fought against Darkseid's invasion, and despite conflicting personalities they were able to work together and save the world. Issue seven starts off a new storyline, but it continues the idea that there is friction between the group, which I like since it shows that it will take a lot for these strong personalities to gel together into a team.

The story starts with Batman and Green Lanter discovering evidence of alien activity in Gotham, and they go to find out if Superman, himself an alien, knows anything about the alien technology they found. But they arrive just as Superman is being attacked by the same aliens that attacked Batman and Green Lantern, and he assumes they are his enemies as well.

Graphic Novel Reviews: Nightwing 001-007

Nightwing is one of those books that aggravates my sense that nothing makes sense in the DC universe anymore. According to this series Dick was Batman for a while. So that happened. So Final Crisis happened. That just makes things more confusing! Are we ignoring everything that came before, or just a few things!?

When Dick returns to being Nightwing, he decides he needs to get out of Gotham for a while. A chance for this provides itself when the owner of Dick's childhood circus home dies, leaving the circus to Dick. At the same time he finds himself hounded by an assasssin named Saiko, who claims that Nightwing is a murderer. What follows is a series that doesn't really go anywhere until the very end, where it connects with the Court of Owls story in the Batman book.

Graphic Novel Reviews: Batman 001-007

Out of all the new series, this was the one I wanted to read most. I came into the New 52 wanting to read Batman and you don't get more Batman than the series called Batman. Unfortunately it was not available when I went to Barnes and Noble. So instead I settled on some other series for the moment, but more on those later.

I eventually did get my hands on Batman and I was not disappointed. While it does suffer the problem of when-is-this-taking-place-relative-to-the-other-Batman-books? I found what I was reading good enough to ignore that particular nitpick. I was also able to ignore the idea that an entire secret society had managed to stay hidden from Batman.

Graphic Novel Reviews: Batman and Robin 001-007

This was one of the books I came to later. Initially, when deciding which series to read I put Batman and Robin lower on my list. The main reason for this was Damian, I had bad memories of him as a character, and I saw no reason to subject myself to JTL (Jason Todd Light) when there were other books that demanded my attention. But one issue a month doesn't last long, so I soon found myself craving more Batman books.